Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: A Review - Middling Monkey Business

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!***

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. This flawed film is the worst of the fantastic recent reboot franchise, but it’s decent enough for Planet of the Apes fanatics despite its very pronounced flaws.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in the Planet of the Apes franchise reboot (and the ninth in the overall franchise), hit theatres this past weekend and handily won the box office by raking in $129 million.

The film, written by Josh Friedman and directed by Wes Ball, is set many generations after the events of its tremendous predecessor, War for the Planet of the Apes, which dramatized Caesar, the patriarch of the intelligent apes, delivering the first generation of said apes to the promised land.

In Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the memory of the founding father Caesar is long forgotten by many tribes of apes living in isolated enclaves. One of these tribes is an eagle collecting group of apes, among them a young chimp named Noa (Owen Teague).

Noa accidentally stumbles upon another group of apes who not only remember the history of Caesar, but exploit it for nefarious, authoritarian means. This group, led by Proximus Caesar and his henchman gorilla Sylva, go on a rampage of conquest in order to Make Planet of the Apes Great Again….and Noa and his peaceful tribe bear the brunt of their ambition.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has Sasquatchian-sized shoes to fill considering the brilliance of its three predecessors Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes, and, to be frank, it never even approaches adequately filling them. To be clear, the film isn’t bad, but it also isn’t the least bit great, and it is easily the worst of the four films in the rebooted franchise.

Planet of the Apes films, even in the original franchise of the late 1960s and early 1970s, have always been great ideas with social issues embedded deep within the sci-fi splendor.

The same is true of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, as it explores authoritarianism, exploitation, manipulation and other social issues. But just like the flawed early 1970’s sequels, Kingdom is much better as an idea than it is in execution.

The biggest issue with Kingdom is that none of its characters are even remotely compelling. The protagonist, Noa (Owen Teague), is no Caesar. He’s a rather dull and disinteresting chimp surrounded by equally dull chimps, like his friends Soona and Anaya. It also doesn’t help that it’s very difficult to tell the chimps apart as they – excuse my chimp racism – all look alike.

The uniformity of Noa’s tribe is further hampered by the flatness of each character. None stand out and none are fully fleshed out. As a result, none of their relationships are developed to the point where they’d be meaningful, never mind captivating.

The humans don’t fare any better. Nova (Freya Allen) is a mysterious human woman who isn’t that mysterious nor interesting. We never truly understand where she comes from or what motivates her. Trevathan (William H. Macy), is a human who works with apes and his story might’ve been pretty interesting but we never get to see it so we’ll never know.

Besides the lackluster characters, the film also suffers due to a lack of narrative clarity and visual crispness. Both of these shortcomings fall in the lap of director Wes Ball. Ball’s previous films include the Maze Runner trilogy, which isn’t exactly the pinnacle of cinematic experience. Watching Ball’s Planet of the Apes movie only increases Matt Reeves standing, as he directed the stellar Dawn and War films and has now graduated to the Batman franchise.

Kingdom’s plot jumps around from a coming-of-age story to a road picture to a fight-the-power narrative, but by trying to be all of these things it ends up being none of them.

Yes, Kingdom does nicely pay homage to the original 1968 film, particularly in one section with its distinct visual style and signature music, and it also gives adequate depth to the franchise’s mythology and archetypes, like having Noa (the biblical Noah – get it?) survive a flood of monkey shit both figuratively and sort of literally. But the movie never grabs you by the throat and makes you pay attention. It never makes you care much about the characters you’re supposed to care about, and never hate the characters you’re supposed to hate.

The best character in the entire film is without question Raka (Peter Macon), a monastic Orangutan who is keeping the gospel of Caesar and his sacred sayings alive, even if it is just to himself. But even Raka is not as good as say Maurice, the stunning orangutan from the previous trilogy.

That said, Raka has far too little screen time, and would be very well served with a Disney + mini-series (as would the entirety of the Orangutan class in the Planet of the Apes universe – give us a Dr. Zaius series!!), which I would voraciously watch. But instead, he’s given short shrift and the film suffers because of it.

The same is true of Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), the villainous chimp leader of a powerful group of apes, and his number one general Sylva (Eka Darville), a rough and tumble lowland gorilla.

The origin story of Proximus and Sylva too would make an interesting mini-series or feature film, no doubt more compelling than the rather tepid adventures of Noa, the good-hearted country ape forced to face the big, bad world. But instead Proximus and Sylva are rather thin characters despite there being a lot of meat left on those bones.

As far as the visuals of the film go, cinematographer Gyula Pados never paints with much flair, unlike his predecessors in the reboot trilogy. The film looks fine, but in comparison to the luscious visual feast of War for the Planet of the Apes for instance, Kingdom falls flat. The same is true of the action sequences, as the fight scenes, most notably the climactic battle, are dramatically underwhelming and poorly designed.

In addition, the CGI, for some reason, looks a little bit off compared to the previous films, or maybe it was just the lack of unique and compelling characters that made the visuals seem less than. For example, there is no character in this entire film that looks as good as say Koba or Maurice from the three previous films.

Another issue is the acting. Despite it being motion-capture acting, it is still acting, and the cast of the previous three films, most notably Andy Serkis as Caesar and Toby Kebbell as Koba, showed audiences the brilliance possible while acting through technology. Nothing in this film even comes close the stellar work of the cast in the previous films.

For example, Kevin Durand gives a rather trite and predictable performance as the villain Proximus. His bluster and big voice are routine for any first-time actor trying to play the heavy.

Owen Teague as Noa never lives up to the work Serkis did as Caesar, which to be fair, is an impossible task as Andy Serkis is the Marlon Brando of motion-capture acting….but still, the drop-off is notable and uncomfortable.

Now, with all of that bitching and moaning aside…I still have to admit that I liked Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes mostly because the original Planet of the Apes movies were my favorite film franchise of all-time and the reboot trilogy has only made the franchise in total even greater as they were sensational. Kingdom definitely has massive flaws – as explained above, but on the bright side, unlike Tim Burton’s shitty 2001 Apes movie, this is a real film and is passable entertainment. While not great, it is not an embarrassment to the franchise or the rich mythology of the franchise.

If, like me, you love the Planet of the Apes in general, you’ll like this movie well enough. It isn’t anywhere near as good as the previous three films, but it isn’t catastrophically bad either. But the bottom line is…Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a professionally made movie about talking monkeys plotting against and beating the hell out of each other…what’s not to like?

That said, one can only hope that the next Planet of the Apes film is a step up from Kingdom, or at least a step in the right direction, and this extraordinarily long-running, high-quality, fascinating franchise finds better footing moving forward.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

The Batman: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars (this is more a psychological character study than an action movie)

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An audaciously unorthodox comic book movie that is really a film-noir detective picture. This somewhat flawed homage to Fincher’s Seven and Zodiac, which boasts solid performances from Robert Pattinson and Paul Dano, is a satisfying superhero story for those with darker tastes.

Early on in writer/director Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which opened nationwide in theatres on Thursday March 3rd, the melancholy and morose lament of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” establishes itself not only as an anthem for the film, but also as an accurate representation of the withered and wounded state of Batman/Bruce Wayne’s heart and soul.

This musical cultural symbol makes it clear from the get go that The Batman is not the nostalgic, family-friendly, fun fan service of Spider-Man: No Way Home, this is a very different beast entirely, as well it should be.

Some critics have lambasted The Batman for its “humorlessness” and “joylessness” and for being “too dark” and “too gritty”. Critics said the same thing about Nirvana when they hit the scene in the early 90’s too.

Who do these people think Batman is? He isn’t the goofy campiness of Adam West’s tv show, or Tim Burton’s and Joel Schumacher’s 90’s films. As the Batman comics of note, like The Dark Knight series, Year One, Year Two, The Killing Joke and Ego to name just a few, teach us, Batman is one dark, twisted son of a bitch.

This guy is a billionaire who dresses in a bat costume and goes out every night and beats the living shit out of criminals. Like a black clad Santa Claus, this badass brute wants you to think he sees you when your sleeping, he knows when your awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sakes, or he’s gonna jump out of the shadows and crack your fucking head open.

So yeah, Batman isn’t Spider-Man, he’s a “dark and gritty” character who lives in a “dark and gritty” world, which is why so many people connect with the archetype, since most of us live in a brutal world and wish we too could beat the hell out of everybody who deserves it.

The pop-grunge band Garbage’s breakthrough hit, “I’m Only Happy When It Rains”, came out in 1995, and the song’s catchy but dour Gen X lament was and still is a very accurate description of me. You see, I’m one of those people who revels in inclement weather and is seemingly allergic to both sunlight and human interaction, so much so that I prefer to spend the majority of my time alone, brooding in shadow and darkness.

According to The Batman, my meteorological and misanthropic proclivities would make me right at home in the Caped Crusader’s hometown of Gotham City.

While Robert Pattinson is the lead actor in The Batman, the real star of the movie is the gloriously decrepit city of Gotham.

The Gotham of The Batman is a bleak, rain-soaked, sun deprived, corrupt and crime infested shithole. If you’re a criminal or a morally conflicted crime fighter, Gotham is both Rome and Mecca as all roads lead there and you must make a pilgrimage.

As far as I know, The Batman is a stand-alone film not connected to any other previous DC properties, but it’s Gotham is eerily reminiscent of the Gotham in the masterful 2019 Todd Philips’ film Joker, just with more precipitation. But unfortunately for the denizens of Gotham, that precipitation, or even a biblical flood, won’t, as Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle once said, “wash all the scum off the street”, that job falls to Batman.

Batman, played with constrained intensity by the teen heartthrob turned indy-movie artiste Pattinson, is a vigilante less concerned with justice than with vengeance, so much so that he actually says, “I am vengeance” when asked who he is.

In the trailer for The Batman, it looked as if Pattinson’s crime fighter, with his dark eye make-up and perfectly tussled hair, were the love child of Morrissey and The Cure’s Robert Smith, but thankfully, in the actual film, the performance is much more masculine and magnetic than the trailer would have you believe.

Pattinson’s Dark Knight lacks the broad-chested physical presence of say a Bale or Affleck, but he does bring a vibrant and vivid inner life to the character that all previous Batman’s have lacked.

Pattinson’s glare and distant stare aren’t vacuous emo posing, but rather are filled with intentionality, which makes them both believable and compelling.

It’s intriguing that in The Batman, Bruce Wayne barely gets any screen time, as Batman dominates the festivities, which no doubt is an accurate reflection of Mr. Wayne’s disturbed state of mind.

The most compelling thing about the film though is that it is as staggeringly ambitious and audacious a super a hero movie as has ever been made. What makes The Batman so unique is that it’s a superhero movie that isn’t a superhero movie, it’s actually a film noir detective picture. Batman being a superhero is entirely incidental to the story of The Batman. It is in many ways to comic book movies what Blade Runner was to science fiction films.

Director Matt Reeves, who’s previous films include two stellar Planet of the Apes movies and the monster movie Cloverfield, has basically taken the David Fincher movies Seven and Zodiac and installed Batman as the protagonist. It would be absurd if it weren’t so mesmerizing.

The Batman looks and feels like a Fincher film, and Reeves is one of the few directors able to pull off such a feat. The key to doing so is that Reeves sets The Batman in as real and visceral a world as any superhero film has ever been set.

Years ago, when Christopher Nolan’s iconic Dark Knight trilogy came out, an older friend of mine, the inimitable Hollywood Gary, remarked that what made the film so compelling was that it dramatized what it would be like if Batman were actually real. I concur with Hollywood Gary’s assessment, but after seeing The Batman I can say that it is more ‘realistic’ than even Nolan’s films. That’s not to say it's better, just more grounded.

Nolan is as great a blockbuster auteur as we’ve ever seen, and his populist sensibilities served him and his audience extremely well on the Dark Knight movies. Reeves though eschews such an approach, and turns his superhero movie into a gritty and grunge infused character study and psychological thriller.

That’s not to say that the film is perfect though, as it can often-times be at cross purposes with itself as the nature of the genre forces upon the filmmaker restraints.

For instance, The Batman is constrained by its PG-13 rating, as the violence seems subdued and anti-septic, which undermines the power of the story, myth and archetype of Batman. If the movie showed in gory detail Batman breaking bad guy bones and smashing heads in response to gruesomely displayed murders committed by the Riddler, then the story and the characters would have had more depth and profundity to them.

Another issue is that Reeves feels the need to explain to a wider audience what comic book readers already know, namely the backstory of certain people and Gotham’s organized crime, using clunky exposition-laden dialogue.

These shortcomings are overcome by the film’s gloriously gritty aesthetic, most notably Greig Fraser’s cinematography, where sunlight is anathema, as well as with a superb cast.

Paul Dano is a formidable acting talent and a skilled artist. His Riddler, part Zodiac Killer and part Unabomber, would be right at home with Heath Ledger or Joaquin Phoenix’s Jokers. He isn’t as good as those two astonishing performances, but he’d definitely fit right in in their neighborhood.

Colin Farrell’s Penguin too is a nice piece of work from an often-overlooked actor, and he looks to be a pivotal piece in the Gotham-verse going forward.

Zoe Kravitz may lack the playfulness of previous Catwomen, but she holds her own when it comes to being sexy, that’s for sure.

And you can never go wrong with Jeffrey Wright, and sure enough, he gives a sturdy and solid performance as good cop James Gordon.

The Batman is also interesting because of its subtle and nuanced politics. Class is an issue rarely brought forth in major movies, but in The Batman, the only thing separating Batman from Catwoman or the Riddler, is that Batman was born into wealth, and the other two were born into desperation and depravity.

In the 2017 film Justice League, Ben Affleck’s Batman is asked by The Flash, “what are your super powers again?” Affleck’s Batman turns and deadpans his answer, “I’m rich”. Damn right. And it’s fascinating that Reeves’ Batman feels the weight of his wealth and the frightening possibility of what he would’ve become if he grew up without it.

As for the potential outlook for The Batman, the bottom line is that this movie is not for everybody, which is a strange thing for a piece of comic book IP. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, but that’s because I’m both pretty well-versed in the comic books and have a cinematic palate that runs toward the dark.

I would be surprised, pleasantly so, if this movie makes beaucoup bucks at the box office. I think it will have a big opening weekend, but it being so unorthodox for a superhero movie and its three-hour run time will dampen word of mouth and thus substantially slow its box office in the following weeks.

In conclusion, my only wish for The Batman was that it be good enough for Matt Reeves to be allowed to make a second and hopefully third film, as I assume he will, just like with his Planet of the Apes movies, get better as he goes along. I think the film succeeded in that endeavor, and I think Warner Brothers/DC will make the wise choice and go all in with Reeves and Pattinson going forward.

If WB/DC wants to take on the Marvel behemoth, now is the time, as the post-Endgame cinematic Marvel-verse is floundering. And by going grittier and giving the keys to the kingdom to auteurs like Reeves instead of lackeys and hacks, WB/DC can gain some ground and maybe turn the tide against the Marvelization of modern cinema. Both Joker and The Batman, are quality first steps in the march towards toppling Mickey Mouse and his Marvel minions.

©2022

You're Welcome World! Academy Awards Courageously Save Earth From Global Warming

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 31 seconds

Hollywood has been averting doomsday scenarios in movies for decades - but now the Oscars are serious about it, brandishing a ‘sustainable’ plant-based menu for the cream of the virtue-signaling celebrity crowd.

Hollywood has an extended and rich history of depicting mankind in peril from various existential threats.

If you recall, it was Hollywood that showed us the nefarious nature of robots, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Skynet and their T-1000 killer robot minions (that speak with a strange Austrian accent for no apparent reason) in the Terminator franchise, and the dead-eyed evil of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network.

Hollywood also raised the red flag concerning the threat from other worlds. Alien, Signs, War of the Worlds and Independence Day are among the many films that show what will happen when E.T. phones home and his dastardly reinforcements arrive to even the score.

Hollywood’s most accurate depiction of humanity’s inevitable destruction was shown to us in the various Planet of the Apes films. Watch the news long enough and you will surely stumble across some supposedly heart-warming story of an ape learning sign language….but don’t be fooled, that Helen Keller wannabe mini-Kong is a stepping-stone to mankind’s slavery under brutal ape overlords. I guarantee you that if enough of these monkey bastards learn to sign we will all end up wearing leashes and loin cloths and yelling at some descendant of Harambe to “take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”

Which brings us to global warming…oops…I mean climate change, that scary storytelling device Hollywood adores. Movies like The Day After Tomorrow, Geostorm and Al Gore’s Oscar winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth have told the all too frighteningly real story of the climate crisis and how it will impact mankind.

Hollywood has taught us that climate change will inescapably lead to a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max type of world where we must wage endless resource wars that include some pretty spectacular car chase battles with Mel Gibson or Tom Hardy, in order to survive.

Thankfully though, the Academy Awards, showcase of Hollywood’s best and brightest, has solved the climate crisis and eradicated it forever as a threat to humanity.

What is the Academy Award’s plan to stop the climate crisis? Well the noble geniuses at the Oscars have declared that instead of serving meat-based foods at their annual luncheon for nominees and in the theatre lobby on the night of the awards, they will instead serve only plant-based foods!!

Take that climate change! Go straight to hell global warming!! Way to kick ass Oscar and you are very welcome Mother Earth!

To be fair, the Oscars weren’t the first to come up with this ingenious plan, as it is the same plan the Golden Globes put into effect at their most recent awards show in early in January. After seeing the tremendous impact the Golden Globes magical vegetarian menu had on the earth over the last month, it is nice to see the Oscars deciding to double down on the effort.

The impact of the vegan Oscar menu is impossible to over estimate. It seems extremely likely to me that by serving Tinseltown’s elite vegetables instead of chicken, not only will the Academy Awards halt global warming but also bring about world peace and maybe even end the scourge of physical ugliness so prevalent in non-famous regular people.

Just imagine how much better earth and all of its inhabitants will feel when self-satisfied movie stars fly to Los Angeles from across the globe in their private jets and then cruise in their first world limousines past the hordes of homeless that literally litter every nook and cranny of third world La La Land, and then go to an Oscars ceremony with its plant based menu which these stars won’t eat anyway because they’re fasting so they look thin for photographs in their glamorous outfits. A complex problem like climate change doesn’t stand a chance in the face of that kind of total sacrifice and complete commitment.

I personally think serving a mostly vegan menu at an awards show is so much better for the environment than say, living a simple and sustainable life, or refusing to do any business with carbon based energy companies, or better yet, divesting from one of the worst degraders of the environment, The Pentagon, and deciding to stop being the propaganda wing for American Empire.

How about this Hollywood… instead of self-congratulatory awards nonsense why don’t the Academy Awards have a full and healthy menu, but as an alternative to serving it to narcissistic actors who won’t eat it because they don’t want to look bloated in photos, take it into the streets of Los Angeles where 60,000 poor, tired and ill homeless people struggle to find access to clean water, food and sanitation as they scratch out an existence in tent cities beneath nearly every underpass and in every open space in the city. Maybe then the Oscar’s plant-based menu would make an actual difference in the real world instead of just in the delusional minds of self-centered eco-poseurs.

I’m just kidding…let them eat cake!! Just as long as it is an environmentally sustainable and 100% vegan cake!

Speaking of the Academy Awards, “and the Oscar for Best Faux Eco-Friendly Virtue Signaling goes to…”

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Top 10 Films of the Decade - 2010's Edition

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 24 seconds

Much to my surprise, I have been seeing a large number of writers putting out their “Best of the Decade” list in recent weeks. I was surprised by this because I had no idea the decade was ending. At my very best I barely know what day it is nevermind what month or year. Just this morning I saw a headline declaring the best movies of 2020 and had to stop and think about it a few moments and then eventually check my iPhone and make sure our current year wasn’t 2020 (the article was predicting what will be great in 2020).

Once I discovered that the 2010’s are actually ending just next week, I figured it was my duty to put together my own cinematic retrospective on the decade. In compiling my list I was wary of recency bias and tried to keep films from this year at arm’s length…but the problem is that 2019 is easily the best year for movies in the decade and thus far in the millennium…so my list simply HAD to reflect that.

So sit back, relax and enjoy my Best of the 2010’s movie list. As always, keep in mind my list is THE definitive list, and all other lists are incredibly, incredibly stupid and worthless.

BEST ACTION MOVIE OF DECADE

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) - I was never much of a Mad Max fan at all. Mel Gibson was someone I never appreciated as an actor or action star (or a director for that matter), and the Mad Max phenomenon just passed me by when it was at its height in the 80’s. I missed seeing Fury Road in the theatre out of sheer disinterest, but stumbled upon on it one night on cable television and thought I’d give it a shot because I had no other options. I was ready to bail on the movie pretty quick but it totally hooked me and left me mesmerized to the point of being slack jawed.

Director George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road is insane. It is basically a violent, beautifully shot, continuous car chase. The film is supremely crafted and the long chase is exquisitely conceived, blocked and executed. I am so mad at myself for having not seen Fury Road in the theatres as I can only assume that the spectacle of it all was even more spectacular on the big screen.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a stunning spectacle to behold, a crowning achievement for the action genre and the best action movie of the decade.

BEST FRANCHISE OF DECADE

Planet of the Apes Trilogy - In a remarkable upset I went with Planet of the Apes over the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel had a great decade, no doubt, and dominated at the box office for the entirety of the 2010’s, but the best franchise in terms of quality was Planet of the Apes.

The first film of the reboot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, came out in 2011 and I thoroughly expected it to be awful. Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes film of 2001 was an absolute catastrophe that, being a huge Planet of the Apes fan since I was a kid, scarred me deeply. When I saw that James Franco was the lead actor in the 2011 reboot I figured this was nothing more than a vacuous money grab by producers trying to cash in on the glory of the older movies. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Rise was a stellar origin film that appreciated, correctly understood, and properly connected to the mythology of the earlier films from the 60’s and the 70’s, and was followed by the equally fantastic Dawn and War. The CGI now available to filmmakers elevated the myth and material at the heart of the story and turned Planet of the Apes into the top-notch franchise it was always meant to be.

Great performances by Andy Serkis and the rest of the CGI ape-actors turned these films, which could have been a punch line, into a compelling and profound series that is better than anything Marvel, or anyone else, has put out this decade.

MOST OVERRATED FILM OF DECADE

A TIE!

Ladybird (2017)- Ladybird was the Greta Gerwig directed coming of age story set in Sacramento that critics absolutely adored (it has a 98% critical score at Rotten Tomatoes). I found the film to be little more than a sloppily slapped together mish-mash of trite SNL sketches completely devoid of insight, profundity or original ideas. Director Greta Gerwig is the darling of critics because she is the manic pixie dreamgirl of arthouse poseurs…this is only heightened by the fact that she married an arthouse poseur - Noah Baumbach! Look no further than the glowing adoration of her newest beating a dead-horse film, Little Women, for proof of my thesis.

Get Out (2017) - Critics loved Get Out because they were looking for a black director to be their messiah in the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite nonsense. Get Out was a flaccid and forced piece of banal nothingness that exposed the bias of critics and the power of white liberal guilt. For proof of my thesis look no further than Peele’s second film Us…which is a total mess of a movie but which critics adored anyway.

WORST FILM OF DECADE

Detroit (2017)- Detroit attempts to tell the story of the Detroit race riots of 1967 but is so ineptly directed by Kathryn Bigelow that she should have her Oscar (for The Hurt Locker) retroactively revoked for setting the art of filmmaking back four decades. As anyone who has ever been to Detroit can attest, it is easily the worst place in the universe, so maybe Bigelow was doing some meta commentary by making the worst movie ever with the title Detroit to match the awfulness of the city with that moniker…who knows. Regardless, Bigelow’s directorial incompetence is remarkable in a way, as it seems impossible to make a film as dreadful as Detroit. That said, Tom Ford gave it a run with his abysmal Nocturnal Animals, but still fell short. better luck next time Tom.

BEST FILMS OF DECADE

10. Hell or High Water (2016) - Hell or High Water could have been named “Revenge of the Working Class”, as screenwriter Taylor Sheridan’s script accurately captured the desperation of those of us living under the boot of the cancer of American capitalism that is devouring its own. Top notch performances from Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster, Chris Pine and Gil Birmingham (as well as the local hires and those with smaller roles) turn Sheridan’s script into a resonant and powerfully insightful commentary on modern-day America in the forgotten fly-over country.

9. The Big Short (2015) - Adam McKay’s cinematic adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book of the same name, is miraculous. It artfully tells the intricate and dazzlingly complex story of the 2008 housing meltdown with comedic aplomb and dramatic power. A great cast and stellar direction make The Big Short not only one of the best, but one of the most important film of the 2010’s.

8. Phantom Thread (2017) - P.T. Anderson’s collaboration with Daniel Day-Lewis is a mediation on control, power and the toxic and intoxicating brew when the anima is conjured. A twisted, lush and vibrant love story that peels away the skin and reveals the wound on the spirit of a powerful man, and the woman who loves him not despite of it, but because of it. A sumptuous feast for the eyes and the soul, Phantom Thread is powered by the masterful work of P.T. Anderson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps.

7. Dunkirk (2017) - Dunkirk is a film of exquisite technical precision, insightful political analysis, heart-stopping action and gut-wrenching drama. Director Christopher Nolan is one of the great artistically populist filmmakers of our time and Dunkirk is his most well-made and daring film yet. leave it to Nolan to twist time and perspective in what could have been a straightforward story of British heroism. A solid cast, which include such surprises as boy band star Harry Styles, give excellent performances that are buoyed by some of the very best technical work cinema has ever seen…or heard to be more exact, as the sound in Dunkirk is amazing beyond belief. The best war film of the decade, and one of the greatest masterpieces of the genre.

6. The Master (2012) - The Master boasts the very best acting captured on film in the last decade…and even further in the history of cinema. Joaquin Phoenix reinvents the art of acting as the literally and figuratively twisted Freddie Quell, a recent World War II veteran with a knack for making delicious, delirious and deadly concoctions from bizarre items. The acting clashes between Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays charismatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd, are absolute sublime perfection. The Master, like its two stars, is a compelling and combustible drama that elevates acting beyond its previous bounds.

5. The Irishman (2019) - The Irishman is a movie about introspection, retrospection and regret. Scorsese’s three and half hour masterpiece is both a genre and career defining and ending classic. The film boasts a solid performance from Robert DeNiro and two stellar supporting turns from Joe Pesci and Al Pacino, who are at their very best. Just as Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven commented on his own career while making his career defining genre, westerns, dramatically obsolete, so does Scorsese have the final word on his career and puts the dramatic nail in the coffin of the genre that, for good or for ill, defined it, the mobster movie.

4. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019) - This is Tarantino’s most dramatically potent and resonant film. DiCaprio and Pitt give two fantastic performances as a fading star and his stunt double and Margot Robbie is undeniably luminous as Sharon Tate. Tarantino transports audiences back to 1969 in order to tell the story of wishful thinking gone awry. A true masterwork from a master director.

3. Joker (2019) - In a decade where superhero movies ruled supreme, the last and final word on the genre was put forth by an emaciated lunatic with a Quaker’s hair cut. Joker has forever altered the current top genre by dragging it through the gutter and being brave enough to tell the actual truth about our time. When Arthur Fleck tells his disinterested therapist that “all I have are negative thoughts”, he spoke for millions upon millions of people living in the spiritual hell that is capitalism in late stage American empire. Joker is the best comic book movie of all time because it takes a chainsaw to the form and shapes it into an incendiary Taxi Driver/The King of Comedy sequel. Who knew that Todd Phillips of all people, had this level of greatness within him? It helps that Joaquin Phoenix, the best actor on the planet, used his formidable talent and skill to morph into the most interesting and human super villain (or hero) to ever grace the big screen. Joker is a game changer for superhero movies, and thankfully, cinema will never be quite the same.

2. Roma (2018) - Roma is a cinematic tour de force that was an exquisitely conceived and executed film of startling artistic precision and vision. Alfonso Cuaron wrote, directed and was even his own cinematographer on the film that catapulted him into the rarefied air of the cinematic masters.

1. The Tree of Life (2011) - The Tree of Life is not only the best film of the decade, it may very well be the best film of all time. Terrence Malick’s magnum opus veered from the present day to the 1950’s and all the way back to prehistoric times. Malick’s experimental meditation on life and loss covered large swaths of history but never failed to be breath-takingly intimate, thanks in part to sublime cinematography from Emmanuel Lubezki and grounded and genuine performances from Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. As spiritually, psychologically, philosophically and theologically profound and insightful a film as has ever been made. With The Tree of Life, Malick takes his place on the Mount Rushmore of filmmakers…and atop my Best of the 2010’s list.

Thus concludes my Best of List of the 2010’s…and soon the 2010’s will end too! Let’s hope the 2020’s will bring us some more great cinema!

©2019

Angry Americans, Shark Attacks and Synchronicity II

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes 29 seconds

I took a little vacation last week and headed out for some sun and fun on Cape Cod. The beach was great, and except for my one close call where I barely escaped/survived a harrowing shark attack*, my time on the Cape was thoroughly enjoyable.

What was not so enjoyable was getting to the Cape. Air travel has devolved from being a modern marvel of man’s ingenuity to being a crucible bordering on a crucifixion. The Passion of My Flight began at 4 am when I had to get up to get to LAX to run the gauntlet of both airport traffic and TSA security. My flight to Boston was delayed leaving LAX for 45 minutes because of traffic on the runway, but at least we were right on time to run into a “microburst” at Logan airport which forced us to divert to Bangor, Maine, of all God forsaken places. For three interminable hours my flight was held, Dog Day Afternoon/hijack-style, on the tarmac at Bangor while we waited to refuel and for Logan to recover from its “microbursting”.

To be fair, my stay in Bangor was not nearly as bad as it could have been. Part of what made it tolerable was that the passengers in my section all bonded over the misbehavior of two passengers who were kicked off in Bangor. I didn’t see what happened, but was informed by a gaggle of gossipy flight attendants, or as I condescendingly call them “stewardesses”, that once we landed in Bangor a guy in his 30’s or so, declared he was going to exit the plane to have a smoke. The stewardesses informed him that, no, he was not allowed to leave the plane and was not allowed to smoke. Joe Camel was having none of it and since the stewardesses had opened the cabin door in order to ventilate our plane, he forced his way off the craft and onto the tarmac to light up. The funniest part of this story, and a strong indicator of this guy’s extraordinary genius, is that he was trying to smoke right next to the fuel truck that was refueling our jet….what could possibly go wrong? To the flight crew’s credit, they put up with none of the Marlboro Man’s nonsense and called the police who quickly escorted this gentlemen to his barred Bangor accommodations for the evening (I can attest that I did actually see the Maine State troopers drive up to our plane).

To the further delight of our section of passengers, the stewardesses also informed us that Smoking Man was traveling with his mom, who was also kicked off the plane for her bad behavior, as she had berated the flight crew as they had her son arrested. The crew shared with us that this woman, who sounds lovely, had also cursed at them throughout the flight because they failed to point out the Grand Canyon to her when we flew over it. While I did not enjoy my brief time in Bangor, I can only imagine that this mother and son combo REALLY disliked their extended stay in Bangor.

My return flight was no walk in the park either, as it was delayed at Logan for 3 excruciating hours before we ever boarded, and this was after I got to the airport two hours early in order to once again, run the gauntlet of traffic and security. Frustrations were running high at the gate as passengers tried to gather information on when exactly we would be leaving. Not surprisingly, airline staff on the ground were not fountains of abundant knowledge.

As far as I know, there were no arrests on this flight but there was a very tense confrontation between a middle aged father and a younger mother sitting behind him. What started it all I have no idea, as I had earplugs in…but by the time I removed them the confrontation was close to becoming a conflagration.

The younger woman, who was maybe in her thirties, had a smaller child with her, around 5 or so, and she was cursing up a storm at the guy in front of her who was with his teenage son. The guy told her to watch her mouth and not curse out his son, and she continued to “motherfuck” the both of them. The middle aged guy raised his voice threateningly in response, and then the woman played shocked and appalled that a man would raise his voice to her, and then the stewardesses arrived and did nothing but watch the argument escalate. Like the “microburst” at Logan on my earlier flight, this storm revealed flashes of shocking intensity but then dissipated into an uneasy quiet.

From my very brief observations of these two people before, during and after their confrontation, I can say with some level of certitude that both of them seemed like pretty shitty, self-absorbed human beings. The guy struck me as a total douchebag, as I had a brief interaction with him before we boarded and sensed he rated high on the asshole scale. The woman was no ray of sunshine either, as she struck me as just as entitled and obnoxious as her male opponent. If a fist fight had broken out between the two I am certain that I would have intervened, but only to punch them both in the face and lock them in the aft lavatory.

So why do I share these stories with you? Am I morphing into a travelogue writer or something? No…I share them because I think these anecdotes reveal a great deal about the current state of America and the American psyche.

One of the first things that stood out on my travels was that our infrastructure is a disaster area. Traffic both to and from LAX and Logan was an utter catastrophe. There are too many cars and too many people and not enough space. And it isn’t just the roads that are too congested…the skies are as well as my plane hit traffic trying to take off from LAX which was just as bad as the traffic on the drive to the airport.

The fragility of our infrastructure was highlighted by my flight being diverted from Boston to Bangor due to a 15 minute storm. Yes, the storm was a very intense one, but it did only last 15 minutes, and yet I had to sit in Bangor for three hours. No doubt other Logan bound flights suffered the same fate in Portland, Hartford, Providence and other mid-major cities across the eastern seaboard. The diverted flights then put strains on their new airports in the form of parking spaces/fuel etc., and then air travel along the east coast would be delayed and backed up because Logan had to land and take off the flights that were diverted/delayed before they let other flights already scheduled leave/arrive.

When you think about our civilization and how tenuous it is…it is pretty chilling. I mean, if there was some sort of solar flare or some other catastrophe that hit the U.S. and knocked out power, we would devolve into Mad Max/Escape From New York/Planet of the Apes territory in a matter of days, if not hours. It would be nice to think that a disastrous event would bring people together and illuminate the angels of our better nature, but as some of the passengers on my flight proved, that is unlikely. Considering that my toddler son behaved markedly better than full blown adults on my flights who could not control themselves or their impulses, is a pretty strong indicator that chaos is just a heartbeat away at any given moment.

In regards to the passenger misbehavior on my flights, the thing that stood out to me is that there is a palpable anger coursing through the blood of Americans. People are just really, really pissed off right now. I cannot recall a time in my life where tensions have been this high in America. People are stressed and scared and completely on edge, and the underlying tension and anxiety creating American’s anger and fury is only gaining in intensity as it expands across the country.

The Smoking Man who refused to listen to the stewardesses and tried to smoke on the tarmac while the plane refueled is a wonderful symbol of the epidemic of narcissistic entitlement spreading across the country. This guy wanted what he wanted, when he wanted it, and was willing to risk potentially blowing up an airliner with 200 people on board just to satiate his desire/addiction.

The funny thing is that everyone stuck on that plane in Bangor was so irritated and aggravated by our situation (our delay/diversion), that I am sure that if Smoking Man had caused a big headache that encompassed all of the passengers in my section, we would have torn him limb from limb like a ravenous mob. I take no pride in saying I know I would have gleefully participated in, if not instigated, that riotous behavior towards any scapegoat stupid enough to present him/her/itself.

It seems to me that America is rapidly losing its mind. We have devolved into a combustible people looking for offense, slights, or excuses to vent the rage that boils just beneath the surface of our seemingly mundane and terrifyingly meaningless lives. This perpetual state of stress, tension and anger blinds us to reality and causes us to see only those things that reinforce our worst instincts and impulses about other people and feeds our sense of dissatisfaction and disenfranchisement.

As to why we are so angry and stressed…well…the causes are legion. As previously stated, our dilapidated infrastructure is a cause of stress as it creates irritants like traffic both on our streets and in the skies. Economic and financial pressure creates stress among millions who have to work longer and harder to make less and pay for more. Politics no doubt is a force multiplier of these stresses and anxieties as absolutely everything in our culture is politicized beyond recognition. Trump, love him or loathe him, is also a major contributor to American anxiety and tension as he is virtually everywhere. It is impossible to escape Trump, or talk of Trump, or opinions of Trump, no matter where you go or what you do. Social media is a toxic vehicle in and of itself, but in the age of Trump it has become a dealer of all things Trump 24/7, that keeps the addicted high on their own supply of Trump love/hate. The media, cable news in particular, are non-stop Trump and have devolved into reality television where Trump is the character they love to hate.

I also think Americans are suffering an existential crisis, where our lives have been stripped of purpose and we are left adrift in a vacuous sea of vapid consumerism devoid of any philosophical, religious or spiritual meaning. This emptiness used to manifest itself as a sort of listless malaise and ennui, but has now morphed into a volcanic rage and fury ready to erupt in order to release the pressure building deep inside its dissatisfied core.

It seems to me that we are on a very dangerous trajectory that is fraught with peril. As the events of the last week have shown, people of all persuasions (political and otherwise) are filled with anger and hatred and are a hair’s breath from snapping and hurting or killing lots of people. As much as I hate to say it, I fear that there is no turning back from the madness that is infecting us all…and when Trump is re-elected, and from my discussions with people on my travels I think he is going to be, this country is going to detonate and we will all be caught up in the conflagration.

America is a tinderbox and tense, anxious and stressed people are going to ignore the warning signs, throw caution to the wind, and try to satiate their selfish desires and addictions by lighting up next to a fuel truck which will cause this whole shithouse to go up in flames. Sadly we are no longer equipped with the personal or national infrastructure to be able to extinguish that inferno.

My observations of Americans during my recent journey made me think of the 1983 song "Synchronicity II” by The Police. The song is off of the band’s fifth, final and best studio album, Synchronicity. Sting’s insightful and prophetic lyrics speak to the meaninglessness of our modern lives and the primal darkness that lurks just beneath the surface of our civilized/middle-class veneer, and are accompanied by an edgy and grating guitar that haunts and pesters like an infectious bug crawling just beneath our skin. This song could be America’s new national anthem.

SYNCHRONICITY II

Another suburban family morning/ Grandmother screaming at the wall/We have to shout above the tin of our rice krispies/We can’t hear anything at all

Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration/But we know all her suicides are fake/ Daddy only stares in to the distance/ There’s only so much more that he can take

Many miles away/ Something crawls from the slime/ At the bottom of a dark Scottish lake

Another industrial ugly morning/ The factory belches filth into the sky/ He walks unhindered through the picket lines today/ He doesn’t think to wonder why

Secretaries put and preen like cheap tarts at a red light street/ But all he ever thinks to do is watch/ And every single meeting with his so-called superiors/ Is a humiliating kick in the crotch

Many miles away/ Something crawls to the surface/ Of dark Scottish loch

Another working day has ended/ Only the rush hour hell to face/ Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes/ Contestants in a suicidal race

Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance/ He knows that something somewhere has to break/ He sees the family home now, looming in his headlights/ The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache

There’s a shadow on the door/ Of a cottage on the shore/ Of a dark Scottish lake/ Many miles away/ Many miles away

Sting is right…and that primordial beast crawling out of an ancient Scottish loch is no longer slouching towards America…it is here, it is angry and there is no stopping or controlling it.

*Shark Attack - My shark attack story is this…there have been a plethora of shark sightings on the Cape this summer, so much so that the Boston Globe even had a front page story with the headline “Sharks on Cape Cod: Just how scared should we be?”. The Globe answers its own question with a resounding…”VERY SCARED!”. For this reason and because the absolute only thing in the entire world that I am afraid of is sharks, I was not going to go into the Atlantic during my vacation. I was assured by everyone I spoke with that the location of my Cape beach was on the Martha’s Vineyard sound, which would have no seals at all, and since it has no seals there would be no sharks. People were adamant that our beach was safe and that no seals had ever been spotted there and certainly no sharks. I admit I found this story to be at best dubious, but due to peer pressure I relented and trepidatiously ventured into the dark unknown of three feet of Atlantic ocean.

Except for the fact that there were dozens of shark sightings at other Cape locations, the vast majority of my Cape vacation went well…UNTIL…on my second to last day, I narrowly escaped death at the hands of a massive and ravenous Great White shark.

What happened is this…as I exited the water with my toddler son, I glanced east along the beach and saw…something. I stopped and focused my gaze to the spot where there was an anomaly in the water. There was a group of about ten kids playing on flotation devices in that exact spot and my mind raced back to the movie Jaws, where a little kid, Alex Kintner, gets eaten by the shark while riding on a flotation deviced, blood splattering everywhere. I could feel the camera zoom in on my face just like it had on Chief Brody when he saw the shark attack Alex Kintner on the flotation device…my mouth went agape as I saw…something!

Then the lifeguard blew their whistle and frantically yelled for everyone to get out of the water. I threw my son to my wife and ran down the beach towards the commotion. People were standing in my way so I courageously knocked them over and pushed them into the water in order to keep a barrier between me and the hungry shark. Then…the beast poked its massive head above the water, baring its razor sharp teeth…it was as clear as day…it was horrifying…it was a ferocious….SEAL!!!

To be clear…I’ve seen seals before…but this seal was absolutely massive. He deceptively rolled over onto his stomach in a playful manner and dove under and surfaced again, much to the delight of the crowds gathered at the beach but I wasn’t fooled. I knew that I had just come within inches of being mauled by a shark…because as everyone knows…where there are seals…there are sharks!

I was assured by the same liars and deniers who told me that a seal had never been spotted on this beach before that the seal I just saw was just “lost”. “Lost” my ass..that seal knew EXACTLY what it was doing. And regardless of whether this seal is “lost” or not...what is to stop a “lost” Great White from following this seal, coming to this beach and taking a giant bite out of my obviously delectable ass?

In conclusion…when I say I survived a shark attack what I mean is that I saw a seal playing about twenty feet from the shore at a part of the beach where I wasn’t swimming. This was a close call indeed.

©2019

Solo: A Star Wars Story - A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars           Popcorn Curve* Rating: 3.5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An enjoyable and well paced movie. Not Oscar material, but a good old fashioned bit of big budget entertainment. 

Solo: A Star Wars Story, written by Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Ron Howard*, is the origin story of that lovable and charming rogue, Han Solo, from the original Star Wars films. The movie stars Alden Ehrenreich as Solo with supporting turns from Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson and Donald Glover.

As I have stated many times before, I am more a Planet of the Apes devotee than a Star Wars guy, and so I would consider myself to be, at best, a marginal Star Wars fan. I do thoroughly enjoy the underlying mythology of the franchise but have often found the cinematic execution of that mythology to be a bit lacking at times. My moderation when it comes to all things Star Wars can be both a blessing and a curse, as it means I never get too excited over a new Star Wars movie, but I also never get too downtrodden if it fails to be transcendent. 

With all of that said, before I saw Solo my starting point was that I had very, very low expectations. Those low expectations were born out of the swamp of bad press the film has been receiving for well over a year now. The whispers of problems turned into a scream last June when Dear Leader Mickey Mouse fired the original directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, six months into shooting.

The Disney politburo then followed up this stunning move by bringing in the ultimate vanilla studio hack Ron Howard to do reshoots and finish production. Hollywood was abuzz over the beheading of Lord and Miller by Disney hatchet woman, Obergruppenfuhrer Kathleen Kennedy, and news of very costly re-shoots bloating the film's budget only fueled the spreading wildfire of bad buzz that can cripple a big budget movie. 

That bad buzz came to fruition when on opening night, a good friend of mine, let's call him Doug, who is a stalwart Star Wars nerd, went to a 10 pm showing (in costume, of course) with his wife here in Los Angeles, and they were the only ones in the theater. Another friend of mine went to opening night in Minneapolis and suffered the same fate sans costume. 

Empty theaters on opening night for a Star Wars movie was a strong indicator that Darth Mickey had a big bust on his hands with Solo. The subsequent box office numbers were underwhelming, at least when compared to other Star Wars movies, and so the media narrative was now set in stone…Solo was a bomb. Headlines abounded on the internet questioning if Solo was the beginning of the end for the Star Wars franchise, some articles pondered if audiences stayed away because the film wasn't diverse enough (eye roll!). 

It was in the midst of this negativity storm that out of a sense of duty to my vocation as a film critic, I snuck off to see Solo. I was so sure that Solo would be awful that I was trying to come up with a clever little spin on the old joke about the bad singer who is implored to "sing a solo…so-low we can't hear you". 

But then I ran into a problem…I went and saw Solo and lo and behold I ended up really enjoying it. Midway through the film I actually thought to myself, "you know what...this is an entertaining romp". Why I was using the term "romp" is a mystery to me as is makes me sound like some hackneyed reviewer like Rex Reed or something, but the truth is…Solo really is a fun romp!

As someone who loathes Ron Howard films, it is difficult for me to give him credit for Solo's success, so I will simply say it is to the credit of all three directors on the film, Lord, Miller and Howard, that the pacing of the movie is so well-done. There is virtually no wasted time or energy in Solo, and it never loses steam and moves at a very compelling clip. 

Another reason why the film is so darn entertaining is the lead actor Alden Ehrenreich.  Ehrenreich is in a tough spot, recreating an iconic role, Han Solo, created by Harrison Ford, but having to devolve the character into an earlier iteration of itself. Ehrenreich tactically increases the swagger and the snark to near adolescent levels at times which ends up being quite effective. To his credit, Ehrenreich possesses the sheer charisma and charm to carry the entire Solo enterprise, which is a talent you simply cannot teach a young actor, they either have it or they don't. 

Being a movie star is a tough gig, as you must have the energy, stamina, force of will, ambition and dynamic magnetism to carry the weight of a major motion picture, all while being continuously beautiful and charming. When I first noticed Ehrenreich it was in the Warren Beatty directed film Rules Don't Apply. The film is abysmal and I only watched maybe a half hour of it on cable, but in that brief time Ehrenreich made me sit up in my seat and say "who is that?" For whatever reason he just jumped off the screen, and no doubt casting people had the same reaction as he made quite a leap going from Rules Don't Apply to the iconic title character in Solo. (as a side note the actress playing opposite Ehrenreich in Rules Don't Apply also jumped off the screen at me, she was beautiful and talented, her name is Lily Collins, and after looking into her I discovered she is famed pop star Phill Collin's daughter...keep and eye out for her)

Ehrenreich's skill is impressive in Solo as he never falls into the trap of caricature when playing Han Solo. His Solo is a real life human being, trying to make his way in the world and find out who he really is, or at least what identity he will adopt. This may be blasphemy to Star Wars fans, but I am telling you, Ehrenreich's Han Solo is a considerably more complex and better acting job that Harrison Ford's version ever was. 

As for the rest of the cast, for the most part they all do solid and steady work. Emilia Clarke is her usual luminous self as Qi-ra. Clarke is both alluring and approachable and she imbues Qi-ra with an unspoken mysterious wound that makes the character very compelling.

Woody Harrelson continues his streak of doing quality work in big budget franchise films by playing Tobias Beckett in Solo, a sort of criminal mentor to the young Han Solo. Harrelson has really evolved into a superb actor, and while he doesn't have a hell of a lot to work with in Solo, he makes the very most of what he does have. 

Donald Glover plays the young Lando Calrissian, and while he often feels like he is simply doing a spot-on Billy Dee Williams impersonation, he does it with enough panache and style to make it enjoyable. 

The one dour note on the acting is Paul Bettany as Dryden Vos. Vos is a big time crime lord and Bettany simply lacks the gravitas and menace to be able to pull off the character with any believability. I later learned that Michael K. Williams was originally cast in the role and shot the majority of it but when Howard was brought aboard to direct Williams was replaced by Bettany because his schedule conflicted with re-shoots. This is a shame as Williams is a far superior actor to Bettany, and in this role I can only imagine how fantastic he would've been. 

Besides Solo himself, the two best characters in the film are the droid L3 and Chewbacca. Both of these characters have very intriguing and poignant story lines that are rich with political and cultural meaning…so much so that I would love to see a stand alone film about either character or both. I doubt that will ever happen, but it SHOULD happen. 

Solo is still getting a lot of bad press and the box office is only going to continue to disappoint its voracious Disney overlords, but in my opinion it was an entertaining movie. It is more akin to Chinese food than Filet Mignon, as it ultimately doesn't stay with you long after you see it, but that doesn't mean it is an abject failure. Solo entertained me, and to me that makes it a success.

If you want to lose yourself for two hours of big budget Star Wars fun then Solo is the film for you..and if you have no one to go see it with you, then do what I did and see it solo!! (See what I did there? That is a play on words…the film is titled Solo and I said to see it solo…just one more bit of evidence proving how clever I am!!). If you want a transcendent cinematic experience that will give deeper meaning and purpose to your life…better to sit this one out. 

*The Popcorn Curve judges a film based on its entertainment merits as a franchise/blockbuster movie, as opposed to my regular rating system which judges a film solely on its cinematic and artistic merits.

©2018

War for the Planet of the Apes : A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

My Rating : 4.8 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation : SEE IT NOW!!!

War for the Planet of the Apes, directed by Matt Reeves and written by Reeves and Mark Bomback, is the third installment of the recent "Caesar trilogy" of Planet of the Apes films. The movie tells the story of the chimpanzee Caesar and his band of intelligent apes as they do battle against the humans trying to exterminate them. The film stars Andy Serkis as Caesar, with supporting roles played by Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn and Karin Konoval.

I am admittedly an ardent Planet of the Apes freak. As a kid I went "ape" for the original film Planet of the Apes starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowell, and all four of the sequels, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet for the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Most kids of my generation were Star Wars fanatics, but I was a Planet of the Apes guy. I had Planet of the Apes action figures, a Planet of the Apes lunchbox and even a Planet of the Apes board game. More than once I dressed as the Cornelius character from the The Planet of the Apes movies for Halloween.

My love of the "Apes" films did not diminish as I grew older, it actually broadened. As I became more intellectually aware I enjoyed the Planet of the Apes films not just for their mythology and science fiction, but also as for their very smart and insightful social and political commentary. The original Planet of the Apes films courageously delved into the culturally relevant topics of racism, class, race relations, nuclear war and militarism with an intelligence and force absent from much more "serious" movies.

The reason I bring up my long love affair with Planet of the Apes is because I think my feelings for this new film need some context. I loved the old Apes movies (I loathed the Tim Burton 2001 Planet of the Apes which should be exiled out past the Forbidden Zone!!) and I was so pleasantly surprised and thrilled with the newer additions to the franchise, starting with the finely crafted Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011, followed by Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which wasn't as good as Rise of the Planet of the Apes but was still worthwhile. What I am trying to say is that I love a great Ape movie…and I despise a shitty one…I'm looking at you Tim Burton, you lousy son of a bitch. 

Which brings me to the new Planet of the Apes movie, War for the Planet of the Apes. I can say, without the slightest hesitation, that War for the Planet of the Apes is an astonishingly spectacular film, one of the very best of the year. War for the Planet of the Apes is a big, blockbuster summer movie sequel, that is for sure, but it is also a real, honest to goodness film that tells a genuine, deeply personal, intimate, emotional story while also revealing greater truths about humanity and the state of our world.  

As a filmmaking exercise, War for the Planet of the Apes is staggeringly well made. Cinematically the film is stunningly gorgeous. The CGI is impeccable, as there is never a moment when you don't think you are watching real life, except with talking monkeys. It is simply crazy how great the special effects are in this movie. The attention to physical detail on all the ape characters is beyond exquisite. 

The decision to shoot the film in a cold, snowy, winter climate was a brilliant one as well. The blue and white colors of the scenery accentuate the exacting beauty of the apes and also fortify the sub-text of the personal, emotional winter through which the main characters must journey and endure. The cold weather and the accompanying condensation of breath is the type of detail and specificity that give the film a genuine authenticity and elevates it to the sublime.

As for the story, well, War for the Planet of the Apes feels biblical because it is biblical. The film's protagonist, Caesar, marvelously played by CGI master actor Andy Serkis, is a cross between Moses, Jesus Christ and even Noah. In the context of the Planet of the Apes canon, this story is meant to be be biblical (with God even making an appearance), as it is the basis for the ape civilizations founding religious and civic text, The Sacred Scrolls, upon which the Planet of the Apes mythology is based. In this ape dominant universe, future young apes will study the story of Caesar that we have witnessed in in Dawn, Rise and War for the Planet of the Apes in their Sacred Scrolls just as we humans have studied Moses, Noah and Christ in the bible. The similarities between Caesar and Christ, in particular, are very striking but subtly delivered, as director Reeves uses a deft touch to convey that delicious metaphor. 

Maybe the greatest thing about War for the Planet of the Apes, among the plethora of great things about it, is that it fits in perfectly with the Planet of the Apes universe and mythology, and has a consistent and coherent internal logic and rationality to it that never flounders. Standing alone the film makes entire sense, but in the canon of Planet of the Apes movies, it is even more illuminating.  One could go from watching War for the Planet of the Apes to watching the original 1968 Charlton Heston Planet of the Apes and not miss a beat. That creative coherence is a testament to Reeves and his commitment to, and respect for, the gloriously fertile source material. 

Reeves also makes an enlightened choice to pay homage to another of my favorite films, Apocalypse Now throughout War for the Planet of the Apes. The signs and symbols of Coppola's classic film about war and madness set in Vietnam are scattered throughout the movie, none more so obvious than Woody Harrelson's portrayal of The Colonel, a Kilgore-esque, god-like Special Forces leader who is out to exterminate apes with extreme prejudice and by any means necessary. Harrelson does a terrific job as The Colonel, bringing an imposing sense of power to the role of which I didn't think he was capable. Harrelson is an under appreciated actor who has evolved to be quite the craftsmen and he is an unnerving joy to behold as The Colonel.

The other actors of note are all playing apes, so most would think the CGI does all the hard work, but that is a terribly misguided assumption. Andy Serkis is once again rock solid as Caesar, making the ape leader more a human/ape hybrid than just a miniature King Kong. Serkis has played Caesar for three films now, and the most amazing thing about his performance is that he has made a chimpanzee into a quintessential Hollywood leading man. Caesar is not quite as interesting or entertaining as his fellow bonobo, gorilla or orangutan comrades, but he has been able to carry three very successful and high quality films to great box office success. Caesar, who is a cross between 1970's Clint Eastwood and 1940's Henry Fonda, may be the best leading man Hollywood has going for it right now compared to all of our other modern movie stars, and that is a monumental achievement and testament to the skill and talent of Andy Serkis.

The stand out performance in the film though is from Steve Zahn, who is a very accomplished actor in his own right without any CGI assistance. Zahn plays Bad Ape, and he steals the show. Bad Ape is, in keeping with the Apocalypse Now theme, like Dennis Hopper's photojournalist character in Francis Coppola's masterpiece. Bad Ape is both comedy relief and a holy fool. Zahn's Bad Ape is both funny and touching and is a revelatory piece of work. The CGI of Bad Ape is almost as stunning as that of the orangutan Maurice and is every bit the equal to Zahn's exceptional work in the role. 

Karin Konoval plays the aforementioned orangutan Maurice, and although he communicates through sign language, Maurice has the most palpable sense of humanity about him. Maurice and his CGI are truly a stupendous work of art and may be the most beautiful thing to appear on film in recent memory. But it is the delicate skill of Karin Konoval that gives Maurice a gentle spirit and intelligence that is so tangible and compelling as to be miraculous. 

In conclusion, I have intentionally not given much information in this review so as to not taint anyone's viewing experience of War for the Planet of the Apes. I was enraptured from the get go by this film and I would not want to ruin the movie going experience for anyone else. That said, I am incapable of saying whether a non-Planet of the Apes fan would love this movie as passionately as I did. I do think that non-Planet of the Apes fans will thoroughly enjoy this movie as just a stand alone piece of entertainment and quality filmmaking, I just don't know if it will resonate with them as personally and on as deep a level as it did with me. 

As a Planet of the Apes fan, I can say without hesitation that this is the perfect Apes movie, and is easily the very best of all of the Planet of the Apes films ever made. I am a grown man and this movie about talking monkeys was able to make me cry, cheer, seethe and squirm. That is a testament not only to Matt Reeves stellar direction, but to his respect for the deep mythology and history of the the Planet of the Apes franchise and universe. I wholeheartedly encourage anyone and everyone to go see this film. You simply will not find a finer or better made summer blockbuster movie that is also a top-notch and serious piece of filmmaking. What are you waiting for…GO. SEE. IT. NOW.

©2017